


Dancing Doll

by invinciblemog



Category: Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Assume 100 percent completion, Assume FFX-2 Sad Ending is Canon, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Dona and Barthello are having a baby, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Friendship, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, No Smut, Non-Canon Relationship, Not Canon Compliant, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Other, Sad with a Happy Ending, Shelinda and Isaaru get together, Shelinda is a POV character, Villains are original characters, and they are a lot of them, because of course they are, guys so many
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:13:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23748154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invinciblemog/pseuds/invinciblemog
Summary: When Bevelle is flooded with fiends from the Via Infinito, Baralai and Nooj scramble to find answers and come up with nothing. In desperation, they reach out to the Gullwings in search of Yuna -- but when they do, they find that she's disappeared without a trace.Spira is once again on the precipice of war - this time, not with itself, but with its horrible past - and the only person who might know what is happening is nowhere to be found. Baralai will discover that the only thing he can be certain of is that there is no certainty anymore - not in Spira, not in Yuna's ever-fragile Eternal Calm, and not in the structures Baralai once believed in.
Relationships: Baralai/Yuna (Final Fantasy X & X-2), Barthello/Dona (Final Fantasy X & X-2), Lenne/Shuyin, Nooj/Paine (Final Fantasy X-2), Shelinda/Isaaru, Tidus/Yuna (Final Fantasy X & X-2)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I don't know if I'm ever gonna finish this, or if it's even worth writing... but I thought I'd post something. I've had this fic bouncing around in my head for a while. I was never satisfied by the ending to Final Fantasy X-2, and I always wondered why the game developers didn't do more with the setting.
> 
> Here you go. Read at your own risk.

"Do you want to see him?"  
  
The boy she once knew as Bahamut asked the question like it had a simple answer. For once, Yuna wished she had one to give. What she wanted and what she needed seemed so at odds at this point, so utterly opposed to what she knew was possible.  
  
Would it be him, or would it be another sphere of Shuyin, another angry retelling of a tale Yuna had heard a million times? Maechen once told her that they were the same, and Yuna no longer had the strength to argue. Maybe they were the same: two blue-eyed boys, one pure-hearted, the other twisted by forces Yuna couldn't even comprehend. Maybe Shuyin was what happened when Tidus couldn't fight anymore, inevitable rage with nowhere to go but down.  
  
She didn't know if she wanted to see Tidus again, so she didn't answer - just watched the pyreflies swirl around her, felt the tears drip down her cheeks without bothering to dry them. "I'm so tired. I just want to rest."  
  
"We'll let you see him one more time, if that's what you want," the boy said. "If you think it will help."  
  
Yuna didn't think anything would help, but she didn't say that. Instead, she grabbed the boy's hand and walked through the portal, her heart heavy. When she opened her eyes, they were at the pond where Tidus held her for the first time, standing in the water. "I don't know where to go from here. I've been trying so hard."  
  
And as soon as she looked up, Tidus was there, walking towards her, his arms outstretched. "Maybe you've been trying too hard."  
  
"You're here," she said, before she even knew the words were coming out of her mouth. She reached out to him, like she'd done a thousand times before in her dreams, her heart racing in her chest.  
  
And then she saw her younger self move through the water, approaching him like it was the most natural thing in the world. It was just a memory, then - just a sphere, playing one of the only memories she'd never shared with anyone else. She wondered how many others had seen this private moment, if any of them knew what they were watching.  
  
"He's not real," Bahamut said. "If we could have made him real, we would have... but he wasn't. You have to understand that. He's just a memory now."  
  
"I loved him," Yuna said. "He was real to me."  
  
"Maybe so, but he's gone now. You have to move forward." Bahamut gripped her hand tighter. "We'd take it all back if we could."  
  
Yuna sighed and looked up at the frozen Macalania sky, at the beautiful trees that were fading from view even then. "How many other Shuyins are there?"  
  
"We don't know," Bahamut replied.  
  
Yuna didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. Instead, she watched the phantoms share a private moment, one she'd replayed in her dreams hundreds of times to no effect -- and for the first time since her journey began, she felt nothing.  
  
She realized then that she hadn't felt anything for Tidus in a long time, that the short, bright love they'd once shared didn't motivate her to find the answers she sought. She'd moved on from anger, moved on from grief, moved on from love; but how was she supposed to move on from duty? Her life stretched out before her, and for the first time it seemed too long, like one overwhelming fight stacked on top of another, with no end in sight. She looked at the gashes on her arm, so clumsily healed by Rikku's potions that they were still bleeding around the edges, and wondered if she could survive another Shuyin.  
  
She wondered if Spira could survive another Shuyin.  
  
When she looked up, the pond was gone, along with what remained of the forest. When dawn came, so was she.


	2. The Past and Its Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear Shuyin:
> 
> If you're receiving this letter, you should know that I am about to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, all! (All thirteen of you, at least!) I'm so happy to be back.
> 
> This chapter exists to retell the story of Lenne and Shuyin through Lenne's perspective (which I think was pretty much neglected in the main game). It will be important later on.

_Dear Shuyin:_

_If you receive this letter, you should know that I am about to die._

_I'm sure you have a letter just like this, but I haven't the slightest idea who you'd send it to. As it turns out, I don't know that much about your personal life; we talked so much about futures that could never be that we forgot to talk about the things that mattered, the things that might have made a letter like this unnecessary. Because the truth is, I know I shouldn't have written this letter to you, Shuyin; that was never the point of us._

_It might be pathetic, but it's all I have left. Humor the last wishes of the dead girl who once shared your bed, my love. It's the least you could do, don't you think?_

* * *

_Do you remember how it started?_

_You were a soldier boy who would be going off to a war that never seemed to start and never seemed to end. I was a war summoner who knew that the war would bring my last days. We didn't know when we would finally be shipped out, only that it could happen at any moment, that it would take us where it wanted and leave us in distant shores from which we would never return._

_I worked at the Temple of Bahrat, where you came in to buy protection charms. When we first met, I was in the sanctuary, praying to Gods I didn't believe in for protection I knew would never come. The sun beat down on you through the temple skylights, like it was happy just to have a chance to touch you, and I couldn't help but sympathize. The lust that coiled through me was unseemly enough that I averted my eyes away from you._

_Mother noticed immediately, of course. She gave you the charms you sought and rushed you out of the temple, didn't even bother to introduce us. When she finished, she gave me more duties and forbade me to leave the temple grounds until they were done, satisfied that I wouldn't be able to finish them before the sun set and the temple gates were locked for the night. We both knew that her reasons for this new rule weren't true, but I didn't argue; I knew there was logic in her fears, as cold as it might be to admit that now._

_But you didn't submit. Perhaps couldn't submit. I still can't decide if your rebellious spirit is a decision or something else entirely._

_First you enlisted the help of my brother Anrino, who was more than happy to oblige. He'd help me sneak out of the courtyard after Mother went to sleep, after which we went to a little cafe on the edge of town. Every Tuesday at midnight, we'd get drunk on wine and whiskey sours, and we'd pretend that there wasn't a war looming over our heads, if only for a moment. When Anrino figured out you weren't a musician, he told me that he was through helping me flout our mother's rules, but by then I'd figured out how to sneak out on my own. Mother, as it turned out, was not prepared for a daughter who didn't obey her._

_She suspected, of course. Every Wednesday morning, I'd show up to prayer with bloodshot eyes, my breath heavy with the scent of the cinnamon breathmints you loaned me when I complained about the smell the wine left behind on my breath; but she had no proof - and besides that, I don't think she could blame me. Sneaking out with you was the only time I could pretend I was something other than a War Summoner._

_Even if she'd discovered the truth, I wouldn't have given it up for the world. I loved those Tuesday nights; loved watching the lights underneath our feet, loved watching the people filter out one by one until only we were left. You always reserved the same spot for us - the one on the edge of the outdoor eatery, right beneath the main restaurant - and when I came in, I would see you waiting there, two freshly-made Mimosas in your hands. I could pretend, then, that we were normal, that our lives would continue as they always had, that there could be a future where we laughed together with no guilt and no heaviness._

_But then you kissed me, and that future crumbled beneath our feet. And in its place came something else - something slow, and sweet, and so decadent it gives me shivers thinking about it now._

_The only explanation I have for that first night is that you wanted to savor it. There was nothing frantic in the way you touched me. And fair's fair, you didn't know why I agreed to it. You didn't know how much I'd wanted it, how many times I'd spent the nights fantasizing about your lips, about the way your hand would feel, about the sounds you'd make. When I asked if we could do this again, you agreed in an instant, seemingly shocked that I even offered in the first place. We stopped going to the cafe and started meeting at your apartment then, an arrangement which I didn't protest. Eventually, I started sneaking out twice a week, then three times a week, then four. By the time I finally left, I was with you more often than I wasn't, and no one dared to try to stop me anymore._ _We never went out. You never wanted to, and I never spoke up. I think we were both so lost in the way that it felt to merge with one another that the sacrifices we made didn't matter.  
_

_I remember: We talked about it once. I told you that I wasn't looking for someone to regret. I want you to know that I was bluffing then. I regretted you the minute I pulled my dress over my shoulders that first night, and it didn't stop me. I knew you didn't love me - you were just a soldier boy looking for a place to lay his anchor for a few nights - but I couldn't look in your eyes and pretend I could stop this. As pathetic as it might seem to you now, I didn't bother trying to pursue someone who did love me because I knew it was better this way; I couldn't protect my mother, I couldn't protect Anrino, but I could protect you.  
_

_Within three months, Mother got her shipping orders. Within two, Anrino was drafted into the Machine Corps. One week after Anrino left for basic training, I got mine: front lines, attacking Bevelle._ _We had a month between me receiving my placement and the deployment of my unit, the Summoner Corps. During that time, we had two conversations where we both participated, and neither of them held any substance at all._

_That was probably more my fault than yours', to be quite honest. You were sullen then, like a light had been snuffed out of you. I was afraid of your temper, afraid that you would turn it on me. You got angry at nearly everything in those days; I was always shocked to hear how vehement you would get. Unlike you and Anrino, I enlisted. I thought I was sacrificing my life to protect my home, that I could help save lives. Before the summoners started coming back in urns and body bags, I even hoped that I would survive and come back, that there would be a future where I could sing again. How could you sleep beside me, knowing that I gave in to these forces that were calling you to your death? How could you hold me without feeling that rage bubble up inside you?_

_I suppose I should be grateful that you never lost your temper with me, but I'm not. I think knowing how you felt would have made it easier to bear. Instead, we passed the time with our arms wrapped around one another, our bodies pressed together in that way we knew so well, and our mouths closed. I counted down the days and tried to keep myself from telling you the truth. That last day, you helped me carry my bags to the pier and kissed me goodbye. I promised I'd write you once I got to the fort. You smiled and told me you'd be looking forward to it, though I could tell from your eyes that you knew I was lying. I didn't keep my promise, but it wasn't for lack of trying; I wrote dozens of letters to you, none of which I've ever sent. I've left instructions with General Gabadis to send them to your apartment when this is all through._ _There were so many things I wanted to say, but when I went to slide the envelopes into the mail kiosk, I hesitated. I thought of you, standing next to Anrino in the Machine Corps, and wondered what the use of these letters could possibly be. I wanted to keep you safe, and so I kept my feelings to myself and hoped it would be enough._

_But I'm not strong enough to die knowing I never said this, so here's what I never had the courage to say:_

_I love you. If you can, please be well._

_-Lenne_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, I am aware of the differences in continuity (namely, Lenne telling Shuyin she loved him before she died). There will be an explanation for this later, but for now, just... remember that a dude who's been dead for a thousand years is obviously not the most reliable narrator.


End file.
